Category: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

The smoking gun

~ susie

google-mpaa

TechDirt has the scoop on this shocking/not shocking BFD of a story about Google and the Motion Picture Association of America:

Earlier this month, we noted that the Hollywood studios were all resisting subpoenas from Google concerning their super cozy relationship with Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, whose highly questionable “investigation” of Google appeared to actually be run by the MPAA and the studios themselves. The entire “investigation” seemed to clearly be an attempt to mislead the public into believing that it was somehow illegal for Google’s search engine to find stuff that people didn’t like online. A court has already ruled that Hood pretty clearly acted in bad faith to deprive Google of its First Amendment rights. As the case has continued, Google has sought much more detail on just how much of the investigation was run by the MPAA and the studios — and Hollywood has vigorously resisted, claiming that they really had nothing to do with all of this, which was a laughable assertion.

However, in a filing on Thursday, Google revealed one of the few emails that they have been able to get access to so far, and it’s stunning. It’s an email between the MPAA and two of Jim Hood’s top lawyers in the Mississippi AG’s office, discussing the big plan to “hurt” Google. Beyond influencing other Attorneys General (using misleading fake “setups” of searches for “bad” material) and paying for fake anti-Google research, the lawyers from Hood’s office flat out admit that they’re expecting the MPAA and the major studios to have its media arms run a coordinated propaganda campaign of bogus anti-Google stories:
Continue reading “The smoking gun” →

Pedophiles

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

WesPala1

I’ve been following this story for over a year. The “civilized” British let it go on for years, maybe decades — and the scandal encompasses many, many more celebrities and powerful people than they mention in this one story.

An investigation into claims in the 1980s that an MP had a “penchant for small boys” ended when he gave his word that he was not a paedophile, a review of government papers has discovered.

Peter Wanless, head of the NSPCC, and lawyer Richard Whittam QC, reported last year that there was no evidence that the government had destroyed documents about an alleged Establishment paedophile ring.

However, the Cabinet Office only belatedly discovered a number of other relevant documents, which have now been considered by the lawyers. They said they found no suggestion of a Whitehall cover-up in the new material, but added that the discovery of the files “illustrates the merit of a broader search of potentially relevant material both on and off the system”.

However, the papers did contain a “striking example” of how crimes against children were treated much less seriously than they would be now. The lawyers cited a document written in November 1986 about an unnamed MP accused by two sources of having a “penchant for small boys” by the then head of MI5, Sir Antony Duff, and sent to Sir Robert Armstrong, now Baron Armstrong of Ilminster but then Secretary of the Cabinet under Margaret Thatcher.

Continue reading “Pedophiles” →

Shaming the poor some more

~ susie ~ 6 Comments

October 16, 2014 Events

Pulitzer Prize winner Connie Schultz, still one of the best columnists I know:

A researcher for the Yale School of Medicine asked women in New Haven, Connecticut, one question: “If you have children in diapers, do you ever feel that you do not have enough diapers to change them as often as you would like?”

About 30 percent of the women said yes.

Keep in mind that these mothers are not allowed to use the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, aka WIC, or food stamps to pay for diapers or baby wipes. This restriction must surely comfort those Republican state legislators around the country who’ve been busy trying to stop these same women from buying such things as steak, seafood, sharp cheddar and anything organic for their families.

That’s another trend these days: making it easier to pick out poor people in the grocery line. It’s a full-time hobby keeping the lives of those people from resembling ours.

In a story for The Atlantic, Olga Khazan described some of the ways those mothers in New Haven stretched the use of their babies’ diapers:

“Mothers would take the diapers off, dump out the poop, and put the diapers back on. They would air-dry the diapers. They’d let their kids sit in wet diapers for longer than they should — a practice that can lead to UTIs and other infections. Other moms have reported potty training infants who are less than a year old — at least six months earlier than is recommended — in order to save money.”

Under the best of circumstances, motherhood has a way of introducing you to fears and insecurities you didn’t know you had until you laid eyes on your new baby. Surely, those of us who never had to worry about the annual diaper bill — Pediatrics journal currently estimates the cost to be $936 a year for disposables — would be outraged by what those mothers in poverty are going through. I’m certain this is most mothers’ — most parents’ — reaction.

But then there’s that other group of people, and they always seem to have so much time on their hands.

These readers’ response was fast in the comments section — and furious in its scolding. Use cloth diapers, many said. After all, it was good enough for them in the 1970s … their mothers in the 1950s … their grandmothers in God only knows when.

Forget that most day care centers require disposable diapers. Forget, too, that you need a washer and dryer to clean them. And forget that if you don’t, you need a car, or else you have to take public transportation to the laundromat, where you’ll spend more money.

Too many readers had another solution: If you can’t afford a baby, don’t have one.

There you go. Let’s add babies to the list of things poor people shouldn’t be allowed to have.

I was so discouraged by the reader comments on The Atlantic’s website that I posted a link to the story on my public Facebook page. Many readers brainstormed about how to help these mothers. A few shared links to diaper banks in their communities.

To my disappointment, a sub-thread took off lecturing women in poverty to use cloth diapers — and to stop sullying our gene pool with babies they can’t afford.

What is it about the internet that turns people into such assholes?

Liz Warren lets Republican witness have it

~ susie

Elizabeth Warren - THE woman to watch in American politics

Way to go!

On Tuesday, Senate Republicans invited Primerica President Peter Schneider to testify against proposed regulations that would protect retirement savings from sketchy financial schemes — and it didn’t take long before he wished they hadn’t. The Huffington Post’s Zach Carter reports that Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren wasted no time in embarrassing Scheider, whose outfit is precisely the sort of sketchy financial scheme that the legislation is designed to protect the elderly against. After he argued that his company acts “in a client’s best interest,” Warren lit into him.

“Mr. Schneider, I just want to understand your company’s advice in these cases,” she said. “Do you believe that people like these firefighters from Florida who are near retirement and have secure pensions with guaranteed monthly payments, should move their money into riskier assets with no guarantees, just before they retire?”
He never directly answered her very direct question, even though she asked a version of it three times. The closest he came was to argue “each situation is very different,” and that his firm offers its risky investment opportunities to people who could benefit from it, like retirees on the brink of death.

“I’m sorry, are you suggesting that these 238 people were weeks away from dying, and that’s why they all got this advice?” Warren asked, referring to the number of people Primerica was forced to settle with to the tune of $15.4 million in 2014.

So shocked, right?

~ susie

Correction: I thought this was from the state AG’s office (he’s the one under investigation) and it isn’t. It’s from the local county. Sorry.

The Texas DA is a piece of crap who is under investigation by a grand jury. No way in hell are they going to do a fair and accurate autopsy.

Who are the people in my neighborhood?

~ susie

The people who are helping to dismantle the Philadelphia School District, that is:

When Superindentent Hite was brought to Philadelphia, his purpose was clear: enact the Boston Consulting Group’s plan for the School District of Philadelphia. This plan detailed the closing of dozens of schools in the district and a following reorganization of what was left into decentralized, independently managed “achievement networks.”

Last week, the School District of Philadelphia announced a list of new hires, individuals who will be in charge of the separate networks. Let’s take a look at a few. The title listed is the one that they are currently entering at the School District of Philadelphia.

Jeff Rhodes, Assistant Superintendent, Neighborhood Network 9

Rhodes comes to the SDP from his position as Director of School Quality at National Heritage Academies.National Heritage Academies is a for-profit corporation based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It operates 75 schools in nine states with approximately 50,000 students. In 2011-2012, it was the third largest for profit charter school company in the United States based on number of schools with second largest number of students. National Heritage Academies’ founder and chair, J. C. Huizenga, is a member of the board of directors of the Michigan affiliate of the right wing Mackinac Center for Public Policy think tank. National Heritage Academies is affiliated with the rightwing lobby group ALEC and is a member of its Education Task Force.

Rhodes’ former employer has also been accused of being unable to account for $10 million of public funds, presenting creationism as a scientific theory, among other allegations.

 
Continue reading “Who are the people in my neighborhood?” →

Karma

~ susie

ashley-madison

So a bunch of hackers have the entire database from Ashley Madison, the infidelity site, and a lot of people must be very nervous this morning:

The hackers say they’ve compromised the entire database of parent company Avid Life Media, whose chief executive has confirmed the hack to security blog KrebsOnSecurity and says the company is “working diligently and feverishly” to take down files that the hackers have already posted online. The chief exec says the hack appears to have been an inside job carried out by somebody “that was not an employee but certainly had touched our technical services.”

In a manifesto seen by Krebs, hackers calling themselves the “Impact Team” describe the site’s clients as “cheating dirtbags” and accuse the company of cheating users by charging them $19 for a “full delete” of personal information and then keeping their details regardless. They say the information they will release includes “secret sexual fantasies,” as well as names and credit card details. Ashley Madison is still online for now, but perhaps it should change its tagline from “Life Is Short, Have an Affair” to “It’s All Fun and Games Until Everybody Finds Out,” quips Daniel Cooper at Engadget. (But there may not be 37 million real clients: An ex-employee claims she was paid to create fake Ashley Madison profiles to attract male users.)

Pentagon hacked

~ susie

By Russians:

But based on the technical details contained in the notice, the hackers are upping their game and employing even more advanced methods to trick users into downloading viruses onto their computers that can then siphon off files, messages, and other sensitive information.

“The sophistication of this attack far surpasses anything we have seen to date from any state actors,” said Michael Adams, a computer security expert who served more than two decades in the U.S. Special Operations Command. The Daily Beast shared the technical details of the malware with Adams, who said it employed tools that make the intruder extraordinarily difficult to detect.

“To use a military analogy, the level of sophistication of this attack is like comparing a World War I propeller-driven fighter plane to a stealth bomber coming in under the radar, completely destroying its target, and leaving before the enemy even realizes they have been attacked,” Adams said.

In the new campaign, which the notice says was detected on July 8, the victims received emails that purported to come from the National Endowment for Democracy, a prominent non-profit organization in Washington that receives congressional funding. The group supports pro-democracy efforts around the world, including in Russia and China, where hackers who recently stole personal records from more than 22 million current and former U.S. government employees are believed to be based.

The emails contained a link that, when clicked, takes recipients to an infected server on the organization’s network. It then downloads malicious software on to the victim’s computer.